Lesson Topics: Russo-Ukraine war, Trump, artificial intelligence
Skill Focus: Listening, Speaking, Vocabulary
Approximate Class Time: 1.75 hours
Lesson Plan Download: stories-not-miss-2025-advanced-lesson-012025.docx
Lesson Overview:
- After warm-up questions and a prediction task, students watch a 3:03-minute video by The Economist entitled, "What will be the biggest stories in 2025?" The video is narrated with a British accent and covers three topics: The Russo-Ukraine war, Donald Trump's "America First" policy, and artificial intelligence.
- The passage is followed by comprehension and a vocabulary-matching activity. After vocabulary matching, students form discussion questions with the target vocabulary.
- There are two debate topics. One asks whether Trump will have a positive effect on the world (or the U.S.), and the next questions whether 2025 will be better than 2024.
- As a roleplay, students debate the value of integrating AI enhancements into a local bank, which would lead to major layoffs.
- Next, the lesson presents several famous quotations on war, life, politics, and leadership.
- As a bonus board game, students move across a board while discussing potential events that could happen in 2025 and using the lesson's vocabulary.
- The lesson ends with a review of vocabulary before presenting some final discussion questions.
ADVANCED (C1/C2) Lesson on Top News Stories of 2025
Warm-up-Questions
- What are your plans for 2025, professionally and personally?
- Are you optimistic or pessimistic about 2025?
- Predicting: You are going to watch a short video entitled What will be the biggest stories in 2025? by the Economist, a newspaper focusing on topics like economics, politics, and technology. What stories do might be in the video? Make a list of at least four with a partner.
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This lesson plan was created by Matthew Barton of EnglishCurrent.com (copyright). Site members may photocopy and edit the file for their classes. Permission is not given to rebrand the lesson, redistribute it on another platform, or sell it as part of commercial course curriculum. ChatGPT was used to generate answer keys and some famous quotations. For questions, contact the author.
Comprehension Question Answer Key
- …
- Trump has promised to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office.
- His proposed tariffs could lead to a global trade war, restricting trade, reducing economic growth, and causing inflation.
- False – The narrator believes it will lead to inflation. Trump campaigned against high prices, not for them.
- The narrator is concerned about the massive energy required to train GPT-5, as the cost and energy demands of AI models are rapidly increasing.
- A ‘bubble’ refers to a situation where an industry is overhyped, and investments exceed the real value or profitability. The narrator believes the AI industry is a bubble because of the huge investments being made while only 5% of American companies are actively using AI.
- ...
Vocabulary: a- impose, b- tariffs, c- gamble, d- inflation, e- lose their nerve, f- allies, g- unpredictable, h- conquered, i- prospect, j- implications, k- distracted, l- capitulate, m- deter
Collocations 1-e, 2-c, 3-f, 4-g, 5-a, 6-d, 7-b